


only fools fall

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drunk Sex, Implied Sexual Content, Infidelity, M/M, One Night Stand, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 19:03:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18555889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Turns out that being in love with your best friend isn't all it's cracked up to be.





	only fools fall

It hadn’t taken long for Taeil’s birthday party to devolve into utter chaos. Taeil himself had been the instigator, of course, goading nearly everyone into matching him shot for shot and then talking the bartender into giving their table a bottle of tequila on the house somehow. Ten had at least had the sense to stop before he got completely wasted.

He can’t say the same for Taeyong though, who’s currently slumped against Ten’s side and is mumbling utter nonsense into his shoulder.

“Lightweight,” Ten says fondly, just to hear Taeyong whine defensively.

“If you had taken as many shots as they had, you’d be blacked out in a corner somewhere,” Johnny says from behind them, making Ten jump. The movement causes Taeyong’s head to slip from his shoulder, and he whines again, clutching at Ten’s arm as if to hold it steady.

“That’s why I stopped,” Ten agrees. “Where did Taeil go?”

Johnny slides into the empty chair across the table and grins. “Talking to the bartender,” he says. “He seems to think he has a shot, but there’s no way. The dude’s super out of Taeil’s league. I told Jae to record him getting shot down so I can make fun of him when he’s sober in three days.”

Ten frowns. “The bartender did literally give him a very expensive bottle of tequila for free,” he points out.

“It’s his birthday, everyone gets free shit on their birthdays,” Johnny says dismissively. “Anyway, I figured you’d need help getting that one home,” he adds, gesturing towards Taeyong.

“You’re not driving,” Ten says quickly. He’s pretty sure that Johnny had continued taking shots of tequila even after Ten himself had decided he’d had enough. Johnny’s a big guy, yeah, but there’s no way he’s sober enough to drive anywhere right now. Ten’s nowhere near sober himself, currently probably just past that very fine line between tipsy and drunk, but he knows this for certain.

Johnny grins easily. “Did you forget that your place is like a fifteen walk from here? How drunk are you?”

“I didn’t forget, I just know you drove here,” Ten retorts, frowning a little. Something about the way Johnny’s acting feels off, but he can’t figure out what it is.

“And it’ll be fine here until the morning, this is a safe neighborhood,” Johnny says, standing up. “C’mon, let’s go, they’re gonna close this place down soon.”

Ten hesitates, and he doesn’t know why. “What about Taeil?”

“Don’t worry about Taeil, Yuta’s gonna drive him and Jae home. I don’t even think he finished one beer tonight,” Johnny answers.

“Oh,” Ten says, feeling reassured. “Alright then. Yongie,” he sings, “get up, let’s go home.”

Taeyong mutters something incomprehensible and rubs his face against Ten’s sleeve. The only thing Ten makes out is a slurred _tired_.

“I know, but when we get home you can go to sleep in your own bed,” Ten tells him.

_That_ gets Taeyong’s attention. He releases his grip on Ten’s arm and sits up straight for the first time in at least half an hour. “Let’s go home,” he says decisively and nudges Ten in the side with his elbow.

“Let’s go home,” Ten agrees.

It might be June, but there’s still just enough of a chill in the air this late at night that the walk back to their apartment sobers Ten up a little. Taeyong, too, if the way he’s talking in almost full sentences again by the time Ten’s unlocking their front door is any indication. Right now Taeyong’s trying to pet Johnny’s hair while telling him how wonderful he is; Johnny’s just smiling indulgently down at him, and Ten’s heart hurts.

It doesn’t take long for Ten to get Taeyong settled in his room. It’s impeccably clean, like always, so Ten doesn’t have to worry about one or both of them tripping over something and potentially killing themselves. Taeyong’s a cooperative drunk anyways, and even more so when he realizes that he’s about to be able to sleep. All told, it takes maybe five minutes from the time Ten unlocks the door for Taeyong to be stripped down to just his t-shirt and his underwear and tucked into bed; Ten’s pretty sure Taeyong’s asleep before he even closes the door behind himself, too.

Johnny’s standing in the living room when Ten comes back, his hands shoved in his pockets awkwardly. “Yongie didn’t want to take a shower first?” he asks.

Ten rolls his eyes. “He just wanted to sleep. He’ll take one in the morning.”

“Alright,” Johnny says, looking down at the ground. “Um. I should probably get going.”

“It’s really late,” Ten protests. “Just crash on the couch, it’s fine.” It wouldn’t be the first time Johnny or any of their friends have slept on their couch after a night out. Taeyong and Ten are both creatures of comfort, and their couch reflects that. Jaehyun swears he sleeps better on it than he does his own bed at his own apartment. Johnny doesn’t argue, so in Ten’s mind, it’s settled; he nods firmly and walks carefully over to the linen closet at the end of the hallway to get Johnny a pillow and a blanket for the night.

When Ten steps back to close the closet door again, though, there’s a solid presence behind him. Johnny chuckles and grabs Ten by the hip to steady him, and his fingertips are warm against his skin even though Ten’s shirt.

“Here,” Ten says, turning around. He tries to shove the linens in his arms into Johnny’s arms, but Johnny isn’t paying attention. No, his gaze drops to Ten’s mouth and stays here, and Ten feels a shiver run down his spine. “Johnny?” he asks hesitantly.

Johnny drags his eyes from Ten’s mouth, and when Ten makes eye contact with him, his eyes are dark and a little wild. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.

Ten’s brain is screaming _no, don’t do it, you fool_ , but his heart is telling him to throw caution to the wind for once in his life. _What’s the worst that could happen?_ Ten asks himself a heartbeat before he lets the linens drop to their feet so he can close the distance between himself and Johnny.

Ten has to lean up on his tiptoes in order for Johnny to kiss him, and it makes him feel small in a way that he really, really likes. Johnny’s hesitant at first, of course – it’s probably the first time he’s ever kissed a guy – but it doesn’t take long for him to get into it, taking over the kiss in a way that has desire burning in Ten’s stomach almost instantly.

Ten tries to shy away when Johnny tries to pull him closer by his hips, almost afraid that Johnny will realize that he’s already half hard just from a couple kisses in the hallway, but Johnny makes a disapproving noise low in this throat and pulls harder. Ten lets himself be pulled completely into Johnny’s orbit, then, powerless to say no.

“I knew it,” Johnny says, pulling away from Ten’s mouth and breathing heavily. A string of spit connects their lips still, glimmering in the low light reflecting filtering in from the living room, and Ten licks his lips, watches as it breaks.

“Knew what?” Ten asks breathlessly.

Johnny’s eyes widen just a fraction. “Never mind,” he says, bending down to press a series of open mouthed kisses against Ten’s jaw and down his neck.

Ten shivers when Johnny tugs the neckline of his shirt to the side just enough to bite down on his collarbone, and he hears Johnny make a noise that sounds like approval. Ten sighs and tilts his head back to give Johnny better access, but is caught off guard when Johnny uses the grip he still has on Ten’s hips to lift him up off the ground. Ten wraps his legs around Johnny’s waist instinctively and sighs again as Johnny sucks a mark into his skin that will surely be a bruise by the morning.

“I want you,” Johnny says, barely audible. “Can I have you tonight?”

At this point, Ten’s sense of self-preservation has flown out the window, the rapid beating of his heart drowning out any stray thoughts or concerns that might be lingering in his head. He has just enough drunken courage coursing through his veins right now to close his eyes and say, “I’m yours.”

 

***

 

Afterwards, once Ten’s gotten Johnny off with his mouth and finished himself off, he reaches out and grabs Johnny by the hand. “Stay,” he asks. Begs, maybe. He’s already half asleep, his eyelids feeling too heavy to keep open much longer.

“Alright,” Johnny agrees after a moment, laying down next to Ten. Ten’s bed isn’t that big, but he manages to put some distance between them anyways. “I’ll stay.”

 

***

 

Ten wakes up alone in the morning, and the only thing that hurts more than the disappointment coursing through his veins is the facts that if he’s being honest with himself, he’s not surprised.

Here’s the thing: Ten has been in love with Johnny Seo nearly as long as they’ve known each other. It’s almost a fact of life at this point – the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the Thai place closest to their apartment is so inauthentic that it’s a joke they’re still in business, Yuta’s the best person any of them know, Ten’s in love with Johnny and everyone knows it.

Well. Almost everyone knows it. Ten doesn’t think Johnny knows.

The worst thing is that Ten doesn’t even know when it happened. There was no lightning bolt moment or anything like that; no, it was more like he woke up one morning and realized that at some point, his play flirting with Johnny had turned real and that he was stupidly in love with one of his best friends who just so happened to be straight.

Taeyong had simply hugged him and patted him on top of the head gently after he’d admitted his feelings to him, which told Ten that he was probably the last one to realize how he felt, too.

The smart thing to do would have been to stop flirting with Johnny once he realized that he actually meant every word he was saying, that it wasn’t a game anymore. But the last thing Ten had wanted was to give Johnny any hint about how he felt, and he’d figured suddenly changing his behavior like that probably would have been a dead giveaway, so he hadn’t. Not even when their friends had started giving him pitying looks, not even when Yuta had stopped by one day to ask Ten why he didn’t stop before he got himself hurt.

Johnny, though, never gave any indication that he was aware of Ten’s feelings and continued to flirt with Ten right back. He even initiated it sometimes, and those instances were enough for Ten to think _maybe..._ somewhere in the deepest corners of his heart. Maybe one day, Johnny would realize he felt the same.

But now, in the harsh light of an early summer morning, Ten realizes just how wrong he was.

The other side of his bed is cold, the blanket pulled up like someone tried making the bed behind themselves as best as they could with someone else sleeping on the other side of it. When Ten gets up and digs his phone out of the pocket of the jeans he wore last night, he sees about a dozen new messages (including one from Taeil announcing that he’d gotten the bartender’s number) but none from Johnny.

Ten’s last remaining hope, that Johnny had woken up earlier than he had and had gotten up to go grab some coffee or something, is crushed when he tiptoes into the kitchen and only finds Taeyong sitting at the table, who seems to be trying to drown himself in his coffee cup.

“Ten,” Taeyong says, looking up. “Why did you let me drink so much last night?”

Ten chuckles weakly. “I tried to stop you, but Taeil was more persuasive than I was.”

Taeyong pouts. “Fucking Taeil,” he grumbles. “I feel like I’m going to die and he’s probably not even hungover.”

Ten sits down at the table across from Taeyong, who slides his coffee over to him wordlessly. Ten takes a sip and grimaces. “No sugar?”

“I didn’t have time to put sugar in it,” Taeyong answers, taking his mug back.

“Right, sorry,” Ten says. They fall into a silence that feels heavy to Ten, because he desperately wants to ask Taeyong if Johnny was still here when he woke up – but he also doesn’t want to ask, because if Johnny _did_ leave in the middle of the night, even after Ten asked him to stay in a moment of vulnerability, he doesn’t want Taeyong to know that something’s wrong. Or that something happened.

Luckily for Ten (or maybe unluckily, who knows), Taeyong’s the one to bring it up. “Did Johnny go home last night? I know he was here when you put me to bed, but he wasn’t here when I got up and there wasn’t a blanket on the couch or anything.”

“Yeah,” Ten says, feeling sick to his stomach. “He did.”

 

***

 

Ten gives himself the rest of the weekend to feel shitty about himself and what happened with Johnny before moving on. First and foremost, they’re friends. Friends make mistakes sometimes, fuck each other when they shouldn’t – like, Ten knows damn well that Taeyong slept with Taeil last Halloween, and that hadn’t changed things between them. If anything, it had made them better friends after the initial awkwardness had passed. Ten wants to believe that even if Johnny doesn’t return his feelings (which is the most likely option, as bitter of a pill that is to swallow), they can still be friends.

It’s a lot harder to believe that though when Ten’s forced to ask Yuta to text Johnny a question about Taeyong’s birthday because Johnny hasn’t replied to a single text Ten has sent him a week and a half later.

Getting Yuta to text Johnny was also a mistake because it tipped Yuta off that _something_ is wrong. And Yuta is as tenacious as a dog with a bone when he thinks someone he cares about is hurting, Ten thinks wryly when what is probably the tenth text from Yuta checking on him in the last three days comes through to his phone. God, he should have asked Jaehyun instead; Jaehyun would have been confused, sure, but he would have done it no questions asked.

_Just don’t forget that if you want to talk to someone about whatever this is I’m here for you_ , it says, and Ten suddenly feels vaguely guilty. It’s obvious that no matter how many times he tries reassuring Yuta that he’s fine, Yuta’s not buying it, and Ten hates lying to people.

“Hey, what’s with the face?” Taeyong asks. Ten startles so hard that he almost drops his phone; he hadn’t realized Taeyong had left his room.

“Nothing,” Ten says quickly. “Just…nothing,” he repeats.

Taeyong narrows his eyes. “I don’t believe you,” he declares. “I don’t have time to interrogate you right now though because everyone will be here in like an hour. You have to get ready.”

Never mind, it’s not guilt Ten’s feeling. Well, not only guilt. It’s mostly dread.

“Why is everyone coming over so late again?” Ten asks. It’s already almost seven-thirty, so that probably means the habitually late members of their friend group won’t even be over until after nine or so.

“Because Jaehyunnie had to work until seven today,” Taeyong answers, moving closer to poke at Ten’s sides. “Get up,” he adds, digging his fingers into Ten’s ribs mercilessly until he falls off the couch.

“Fine,” Ten answers, trying to sound dignified as he picks himself up off the floor. “I’m going, I’m going, calm your tits,” he adds, holding his head up high as he flips Taeyong off.

Taeyong’s laughter follows him down the hall.

Ten stays in his room until he hears voices coming from their living room, and then waits a few minutes longer. He would stay holed up all night if he could, but he knows that eventually someone would come drag him out. His theory is proven right when he opens his door and finds Taeil standing on the other side, fist raised in the air like he was just about to knock.

“You alright?” Taeil asks, looping his arm through Ten’s right one.

“Have you been talking to Yuta lately?” Ten asks, allowing Taeil to lead him into the living room.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Taeil shrugs. “He’s worried about you.”

Ten rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about Taeyong. It’s his birthday.”

“His birthday is on Monday, actually,” Taeil says, but doesn’t argue the point further.

It’s probably a good thing that Taeil’s holding onto Ten, because the first thing he sees when they make it to the living room is Johnny with his arm around a brunette woman Ten’s never seen before. His knees feel like they’re going to give out from underneath him, and he doesn’t miss how Taeil tenses next to him either.

“Oh. Johnny’s here,” Taeil says flatly. Taeil squeezes Ten’s arm, and Ten has a feeling that no one would have bothered him, maybe would have even told him to stay in his room if he wanted, had they known Johnny was going to show up with a woman no one knows.

“I’m here,” Johnny says cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room. “You know I wouldn’t miss Taeyong’s birthday.”

Taeyong laughs, but it sounds forced to Ten. He sees Jaehyun wince out of the corner of his eye, so it probably sounds forced to him too. “I’m glad,” he says. “Who’s your friend?”

The poor woman looks confused, and Ten almost feels bad for her; he’s sure that she has no idea what she walked into and knows he would hate being in a comparable situation himself. Almost, though. The anger and heartbreak battling for dominance in his chest isn’t leaving room for him to actually feel bad for her.

Johnny laughs (his laugh sounds nearly as fake as Taeyong’s had) and pulls the woman even closer. “This is my girlfriend Diana,” he says.

“Oh,” Ten whispers. The grip Taeil has on his arm is verging on a death grip now, but Ten barely registers it. He’s too busy trying not to fall apart in front of everyone.

Johnny glances at Ten quickly, so quickly that Ten almost misses it, then turns back to Taeyong. “We’ve been together for about six weeks now. I thought it was time for her to meet everyone.”

_Six weeks_.

“I have to go,” Ten chokes out, pulling his arm out of Taeil’s grip. Taeil lets him go, probably realizing that Ten literally can’t handle being in this room a second longer.

“What’s going on?” Ten hears the woman ask as he pulls open the patio door. He slams it closed behind him, forcefully enough that it rattles a bit, then crosses over to the railing and buries his head in his hands.

_Six weeks_.

If Johnny’s been dating someone for six weeks now, then what the fuck was he doing a couple weeks ago? They were drunk, but not _that_ drunk. Neither of them had been anywhere near drunk enough that consent was an issue when they fucked. And Johnny had been the one to initiate. He’d invaded Ten’s personal space in the hallway, he’d asked to kiss Ten, he’d asked Ten if they could fuck.

Ten doesn’t have any answers. He just knows that he literally feels like he’s going to be sick.

Ten hears the patio door open and close. Someone wraps their arms around him from behind a second later and holds on tightly. He’s not sure who exactly it is, just knows they’re not big enough to be Jaehyun (or Johnny, but he knows damn well Johnny isn’t coming after him), but he relaxes in their hold anyways.

“He really fucked you up, huh,” Yuta murmurs gently. His breath is warm against the back of Ten’s neck, and it feels oddly reassuring.

Ten nods once, barely. He knows Yuta sees it though from how he sighs, sounding almost defeated. “I can’t be around him right now, Yuta,” he admits.

“He got here after Taeil went to get you and we didn’t have a chance to intervene,” Yuta says, sounding apologetic. It confirms what Ten already suspected, that Johnny had literally just showed up before he went into the living room, had probably shown up completely unannounced too. Which actually isn’t like Johnny at all – he always sends a text to someone letting them know when he’s close. Or at least, he always had before tonight, apparently. 

“I think I fucked up,” Ten says quietly.

“There’s nothing you could have done that would have made Johnny springing his new girlfriend on you without warning like that okay,” Yuta says firmly.

Ten closes his eyes. “Something happened between us that I don’t think anyone knows about,” he admits.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” Yuta asks, his voice sounding a lot more gentle than it had thirty seconds before.

“Not right now,” Ten says, exhaling heavily. “I don’t want to ruin Taeyong’s birthday celebration.”

He waits for Yuta to tell him that it’s already been ruined, since they both know it’s true. Everyone knows it’s true, probably. But Yuta doesn’t.

“Tomorrow?”

“I guess,” Ten agrees begrudgingly. There’s no way he’ll be able to avoid talking about it much longer, not after what just happened and what he just admitted to Yuta. Maybe it’ll do him some good to talk about. It’s not like he can feel much worse than he does right now anyway. “But I’m not going back inside until they leave,” he adds quickly.

“That’s fine,” Yuta reassures him.

“Save me a piece of cake.”

“You know,” Yuta says, “somehow I think that they’ll be gone before then.”

 

***

 

Yuta had been right, of course. He’d refused to go inside himself, saying that there was no way he’d be able to leave Ten alone right then, so they’d stared up at the mid-summer sky from the balcony until Taeyong had poked his head to tell them that Johnny and his girlfriend had left. It hadn’t even been ten o’clock yet, meaning they had stayed for less than an hour.

(Ten had wondered how Johnny explained the situation to his girlfriend and hated himself for even being concerned about it.)

Ten had gotten his cake and then gone to his room shortly thereafter. There had been a part of him hoping that maybe if he went to sleep, he’d wake up to find that the evening had been a rather vivid nightmare. Or that the last two weeks or so had been a prolonged one.

Instead, he’d woken up to an overly bright bedroom, the sound of voices in the kitchen, and the knowledge that the night before had really happened. Ten rolls out of bed with a groan and pads quietly into the bathroom. H catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and immediately looks away; he hadn’t cried last night, but you’d never be able to tell by how puffy his eyes are.

He’d heard voices in the kitchen from his room, so Ten’s expecting someone else besides Taeyong to be there, and honestly? Yuta still being there isn’t a surprise. Jaehyun and Taeil, though? That catches Ten more than a little off guard.

“You guys are here early,” Ten says, trying for flippant and missing it by a mile.

“I brought breakfast,” Taeil answers, nodding towards the box of donuts on the table. “Jaehyun and Yuta stayed the night, though.”

Now that Taeil mentions it, Ten does vaguely recall someone sliding into bed next to him in the middle of the night, claiming that the couch was already taken. Jaehyun has one of their extra blankets wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, so that means it was probably Yuta who had slept in his room last night.

Ten slides into the one empty chair at the table and reaches for the box of donuts gratefully. “What if I claimed the rest of the box for myself?” he asks.

“You can if you want,” Taeyong says gently, so gently that it nearly breaks Ten.

“I’m not dying or anything,” Ten says, feeling the tears that had refused to fall last night spring to his eyes. “I’m just. It really fucking hurts, you know? I feel like an idiot,” he adds. Because in the light of day, it’s the humiliation that hurts the most, even more so than the disappointment. Ten had always known there was a chance Johnny would start dating someone new before he moved on – Johnny was a catch, or so Ten had always thought – but there’s nothing that could have prepared him for _this_.

“Tell us what happened, Tennie,” Taeyong implores.

Ten does.

Ten tells them every sordid detail, starting from the second Johnny had approached him and Taeyong at the bar that fateful night two weeks ago. He tells them how Johnny had initiated their hookup in the hallway, how he’d let Johnny set the pace – how he’s realized in the days that have passed since that he’d had clandestine hookups in the bathroom of a club that took more time with him than Johnny did once their clothes had come off – how bitterly disappointed Johnny had looked when Ten had refused to let Johnny actually fuck him, how he’d asked Johnny to stay and Johnny had left anyways, how Johnny’s ignored him ever since.

“I fucked up, I guess,” Ten concludes, feeling like all of the energy has been drained from his body. He’s been staring at the donut box ever since he started talking; he hadn’t wanted to look anyone in the eye while he was talking, and he’s almost afraid to do so now. Afraid of the expressions he might see on his friends’ faces. “Please don’t hate me,” he adds, quietly.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Yuta says. Snarls, really.

“Sit down,” Taeyong snaps. That gets Ten to look up, and when he does, he sees Yuta trying to free himself from Taeyong’s grip.

“Don’t,” Ten pleads. “I know you’re mad, but I made a mistake too.”

Yuta scoffs. “You slept with the guy you’re in love with when he came on to you while you were drunk,” he says sharply. “Johnny, on the other hand, cheated on the girlfriend he hadn’t bothered telling anyone about with you, ignored you for two weeks afterwards, sprung this new girlfriend on you without warning while also making sure you would _know_ that he cheated on her with you, and did all of that knowing you’re in love with him. Did I miss anything?” he adds.

Ten shakes his head. “Johnny doesn’t know I’m in love with him,” he scoffs. He can’t know. There’s no way Johnny would have done everything he’s done in the past two weeks if he had known, Ten thinks – but he’s still looking at Yuta, so he sees how Yuta freezes just before his face falls.

“Oh, no,” Taeil whispers, barely loud enough for Ten to hear. It feels like someone just stabbed him in the chest anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) || [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5)


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